A large number of sellers' stores have run into problems and are seeking redress...

Recently, some sellers have experienced a series of changes:

The store link was removed overnight

Store funds are frozen

Received an email from a foreign lawyer regarding infringement

…

After digging deeper, we discovered that malicious claims have resurfaced!

A large number of sellers were sued for malicious infringement

From a legal perspective, patents are a form of protection for intellectual property rights. We never expected that one day they would be targeted by criminals and made a big fuss about.

Thousands of Walmart stores have recently been hit by a vulnerability tampering attack, which has resulted in stores being frozen and funds being withheld. Especially for big sellers, almost all of them have been affected.

Many cross-border sellers in Shenzhen are involved in this. Some sellers in Shenzhen said that the funds of dozens of Walmart stores in the United States have been frozen, and more than 100,000 US dollars in account funds cannot be withdrawn. In addition, 30 stores have been tampered with, but no case has been filed for freezing yet.

"They froze the store's funds through the U.S. court, and we are waiting for a lawyer to find them for a settlement." It is said that a related rights protection group has attracted more than 300 Walmart sellers involved in just a few days.

It is understood that the reason why the sellers' links can be implanted with infringing brands is because of the loophole of editing rights on the Walmart platform. The criminals took advantage of the follow-selling mechanism and editing rights loophole of the Walmart platform, obtained the editing rights of the follow-selling links through technical means, and then implanted their own brands in the sellers' link titles or descriptions.

During the entire process, sellers usually do not know that their links have been tampered with, but criminals have already secretly used this as evidence to sue in court.

In previous cases, it was not uncommon for sellers to suffer in silence and pay money to settle the dispute, but this time the sellers became "tougher". Many of them joined together to call the police and collectively defend their rights against Walmart.

However, reporting the case to the police was not as smooth as expected. "The police did not file a case, saying they lacked evidence."

Regarding this incident, Walmart headquarters also replied to the seller via email, saying, "If there is any new development, we will inform you immediately."

Are Chinese people manipulating the situation to make “claims”?

Insiders revealed that the infringing brands that were implanted include AUQ, GJX, TELOLY, Designice, acdanc, FACEGA, etc., among which the most sellers are implanted with AUQ (registration effective in 2021, protection scope includes sleeping bags, curtains, car interiors, furniture, etc.) and FACEGA (registration effective in 2021, protection scope includes gardening tools, tableware tweezers, electric curling irons, etc.) .

The registration and effective dates of the other four trademarks are also concentrated in 2021 and 2022. The scope of protection includes tea sets, dental floss, pet grooming tools, clothes drying racks, bicycle helmets, smart watches, laptops, photographic equipment, headphones...

Image source: USPTO

However, because it is an indiscriminate attack , the sellers affected are not limited to these categories.

According to the USPTO, these trademarks all come from a British company called "LIANGSWORD LIMITED".

Could it be that the British are behind this?

The sellers who were attacked speculated that this company was most likely controlled by Chinese people because the first few letters of the company's name, LIANG, were clearly Chinese pinyin.

This is also the routine operation of "repeat offenders", that is, first register the trademark/patent, and then cooperate with foreign law firms to sue the seller for infringement.

As malicious complaints of infringement are increasing, it not only damages the legitimate rights and interests of sellers, but also has an adverse impact on the entire market environment. When encountering malicious complaints of infringement, you can seek help in time. At the same time, in daily operations, you must strictly abide by the platform's regulations to prevent criminals from taking advantage of the opportunity.